“It feels like my life has started, whereas I think in Ireland I would still be waiting for my life to start,” says Fern Kelly (25), who moved to Utrecht in August 2023.
A landmark study from the Central Statistics Office published on Monday found that more than one in eight (12.7 per cent) 25-year-olds in the Republic have emigrated. The CSO report draws on data from the longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study and examines findings from a group of people born in 1998.
Housing was the dominant concern for this group, with almost 98 per cent of the survey’s 3,380 respondents either very or somewhat concerned about accommodation prospects.
For Kelly, her decision to emigrate was “based on the price of master’s tuition in Ireland”.
“I’m actively learning the Dutch language because I want to stay here. I love Ireland, but for a place that’s called the land of saints and scholars, it’s terrible that the reason I had to leave was because I literally couldn’t study there - it was financially impossible.”
Having since graduated from the Utrecht University, Kelly is now employed there and plans to make the city her home.
She says she has noticed a significant improvement in her health and overall life satisfaction levels since emigrating.
“The level that I was drinking [in Ireland], as it pertains to socialising and all of this, was 10 times higher than the life that I have now … I’ve stopped smoking, drinking and vaping, essentially, since I moved here. So couple that with cycling to work every day, I feel like I’m a lot healthier.
“Something I notice a lot when I go back to Ireland is the amount of vapes, it’s so jarring. Whereas in the Netherlands, they’ve made them illegal to sell so I very rarely see them here,” she adds.
Kelly attributes a boost in her mental health, which she says “has 100 per cent improved”, to the “increased sense of independence that also joins with a feeling of autonomy, of fulfilment, accomplishment” gained from being able to move out of the family home.
“If I stayed in Ireland, I would be looking to move out for the first time, whereas now at 25, I have almost two years of living outside of home. It’s a bigger responsibility and it feels like my life has started, whereas I think in Ireland I would still be waiting for my life to start.”
Responding to the CSO findings, the National Youth Council of Ireland’s policy and advocacy director, Kathryn Walsh says: “While we know that these figures are truly shocking, unfortunately there’s nothing new. The reality is that, by and large, the public are becoming desensitised to it.”
Walsh said there was a “need for intergenerational solidarity and equity”.
“Young people, despite being a significant cohort of the population, very often they’re just pushed aside … We’re hoping now with the new programme for government that we may see some relief so young people can have a better future.”
[ The Irish Times view on Ireland’s young adults: a stuck-at-home generationOpens in new window ]
Another 25-year-old, Cormac Nugent, says he plans to emigrate in the near future.
“The main reason is that I am reliant on family accommodation as my living space if I’m to even begin considering saving money,” says Nugent, who is from Leitrim and living in a family-owned property in Dublin.
“Living abroad would force me on to my own feet more, as well as hopefully leave me with enough money left over each week to continue to rent comfortably.”
The financial strain imposed by the cost of living makes maintaining good health, both physical and mental, a challenge for Nugent.
“My mental health is okay … but I don’t feel I have the money or time to invest in myself as much as I should. If money were no object I would be in physio, therapy and a gym,” he says.
As for the future, Nugent is “not optimistic, but I’m hopeful”.
“I think that in order to own my own home before I’m 40, in lieu of an unthinkable family tragedy that sees me as the last person standing, I’d have to sacrifice my young adulthood in exchange for savings more or less each week.
“I’m not sure that I could live happily in a bungalow that cost me not only too much money, but too many memories from times I won’t get back.”
Like Nugent, Jonathan Stanley, from Bray, also lives with family in Dublin.
“I’m living with my gran. I play music, and I’m trying to make that into a living so the only real option was to stay living with family.”
The reality of being 25 in Ireland does not match the expectations Stanley had for himself growing up. It is also in stark contrast with the lives of generations before him - he says his grandparents got married “with something like a week’s wages”.
“I think as a kid I presumed that I’d by now at the very least be renting somewhere and very nearly owning somewhere,” he says.
Stanley wants to pursue a career in either wildlife conservation or music, but “because Ireland’s a smaller country, it is definitely hard to get jobs in these areas”.
Emigrating in search of job opportunities is a possibility. “It has been on my mind that I don’t know how long it would work to try basing myself in Ireland,” he says. “If I wanted to pursue a career I liked, owning a house [in Ireland] doesn’t seem like it would be as feasible.”
Stanley says that climate change makes it difficult to plan for the future: “I think I am conscious that we are pushing the planet to such an extent that it does feel harder to think longterm, in a way. It just feels weird to think ahead 10 or 15 years because we don’t really know how things will have changed by then, so that does weigh on my mind.”
Megan van der Riet moved from South Africa to Ireland in September 2023 to study at UCD. She decided to stay after her degree, and started a graduate job in Dublin last October.
For van der Riet, housing “was definitely the most stressful part about coming here”.
“I thought housing in Cape Town was difficult to get, which I mean it is, but then I got here and I was like, ‘Oh flip, okay’ … I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Despite this challenge, she sees herself living in Ireland for the next five to 10 years. The question of home ownership creates a barrier for remaining here beyond that period.
“I would like to own a house one day and I just don’t see how. It’s so expensive here … it’s really a lot cheaper in South Africa. I’ve kind of resigned myself that it’ll definitely not happen in the next 10 years,” van der Riet says.
Saving in Ireland’s current economic climate is also difficult, she says. “I definitely would say I’m living pay cheque to pay cheque.”
Like Stanley, van der Riet says her concern for climate change makes it difficult to plan ahead.
“I listened to a podcast the other day about retirement savings and should we even bother saving for a retirement because it’s all based on the financial markets, and who knows what that’s going to be if the world is burning up and flooding. Everything is changing so much it’s hard to plan for the future. It’s a bit scary.”
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